Chinese desserts were first brought to Singapore by immigrants in the past and now are a common treat enjoyed by many across the island. Made up of ingredients such as almonds, taro, sesame and more, these dishes are served both hot and cold. Join host Munah Bagharib as she tries making her own modern Chinese desserts, alongside Edwin Fong and Sharon Fong, owners of dessert stall Hup Ka Foon.
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00:00 I think I'm happy. This episode, all I do is eat, right?
00:03 Nothing else I have to do, right?
00:05 Right?
00:06 Hello, I'm Runa and welcome to Asia One Tries,
00:19 where we explore local traditions and different cultures
00:22 and find out what makes Singapore a melting pot of cultures.
00:26 We are in beautiful Chinatown,
00:28 and I used to come here for the nightlife,
00:31 but I haven't been here in a long time and I'm feeling a bit nostalgic.
00:35 I do wonder what we're doing though that's related to arts and culture,
00:38 because there's too many here.
00:40 Can you give me my three hints, please?
00:41 Okay, Munah, so here are the three hints.
00:43 Sugary, comforting, hot or cold.
00:47 Coffee.
00:48 Sugarcane!
00:49 Oh.
00:50 It's a type of dessert.
00:51 What kind of dessert?
00:53 We're making Chinese dessert.
00:55 Yes, Munah, so today you will be making Chinese dessert.
00:58 The only Chinese dessert I know is actually chian teng,
01:03 because my grandma, she's Chinese,
01:05 and she and my mom used to be obsessed with that.
01:07 So I'm very excited to delve into her culture
01:10 and make Chinese dessert. Let's go!
01:11 Hello!
01:14 Hi, I'm Munah.
01:15 - Nice to meet you. - Hi, Munah.
01:16 Nice to meet you.
01:17 I'm excited to make dessert.
01:18 You've come to the right place.
01:19 Have a seat, we'll serve you a drink and all.
01:22 - Okay, sure. Thank you. - Alright.
01:24 Thank you.
01:25 Hi, Munah, try this.
01:27 This is our homemade hot tonic juice.
01:29 Oh!
01:30 Okay, it's good for digestion.
01:31 Very refreshing.
01:32 Please, have a seat. Join me.
01:34 Okay.
01:35 Cheers.
01:37 Cheers. Sorry, I just went for it.
01:39 So tell me more about this place.
01:41 Welcome to Hapka Foon.
01:43 This is a small little shop that we have.
01:45 We both co-own it, and basically,
01:48 I'm the salesman and she is the main chef behind it.
01:51 Not in our wildest dreams that we think
01:53 that we'll end up in this.
01:55 Used to be a regional business development manager.
01:59 My wife, Sharon, she used to be a stockbroker.
02:02 He asked me, "You know, you have a bit of passion.
02:05 Why don't you give it a try?"
02:06 So on that note, tell me a bit about Hapka Foon
02:09 and how it started.
02:10 Basically, we are just a traditional dessert shop
02:12 where we serve mainly more of a
02:15 skewed to Cantonese-style dessert.
02:17 And we also have the traditional local or Asia desserts,
02:20 things like jemdo and stuff.
02:22 Hapka Foon started after we were helped by my uncle
02:26 in the Singapore Centre.
02:27 We already have his recipe and everything.
02:29 Ooh, okay.
02:30 And so, with Chinese desserts,
02:32 how did it come over here to Singapore?
02:35 Primarily, I believe that it came over together
02:37 with all the immigrants that came over.
02:40 Together, the Chinese immigrants,
02:41 they bring their type of food,
02:42 and then on top of that, dessert is one of them.
02:45 And what are some of the different types of desserts?
02:47 The Cantonese, we like our paste.
02:50 So we have things like almond, sesame paste,
02:53 which is a black sesame,
02:54 and then we have the walnut.
02:56 Southern China type, we have the red bean.
02:58 The way we cook it is thickened,
03:00 and then it's with tangerine peel and lotus seed.
03:03 Okay, sounds very tempting already, just speaking to you.
03:06 So I think I'm ready to learn how to make Chinese desserts.
03:09 All right, let's go!
03:11 Come to our small little kitchen.
03:13 Okay, basically, down here in the kitchen,
03:15 this part will be the cold section.
03:17 Okay, and then this is our homemade taro balls.
03:21 We basically made ourselves from fresh sweet potato.
03:25 Over here is the hot section.
03:26 This is the hot section.
03:27 Okay, this is the almond cream.
03:30 And you make this at home?
03:31 Ah, yes.
03:32 We use the almond nuts, a few types of almond nuts,
03:34 and then we blend together.
03:35 We filter it into a bag,
03:37 and then we process to make it into the viscosity
03:40 that we want.
03:41 How long does it take to make it?
03:42 Hour to two.
03:43 Oh!
03:44 Yeah, this one is the sesame.
03:45 So this is sesame paste, it's slightly thicker
03:48 than the almond cream.
03:49 This one is the walnut paste.
03:50 I love walnut paste!
03:52 You can actually mix the paste,
03:54 like, you know, walnut, sesame, walnut, almond,
03:56 it's up to you.
03:58 All right, so when a customer orders,
04:00 for example, they order the walnut paste,
04:02 what's the process like?
04:03 This is the bowl that we serve it,
04:06 we just, yeah.
04:08 And then, oh!
04:08 Okay, this is our walnut.
04:09 Oh, thank you!
04:10 So normally when we serve, we'll tell them,
04:11 okay, this is your walnut.
04:13 All right, thank you.
04:14 That's all, that's a wrap, guys.
04:16 That's all I needed today.
04:17 (laughs)
04:19 It's so good!
04:22 I love walnut paste!
04:24 Okay, I have to stop myself from eating it.
04:26 So, actually, what are some of the common ingredients
04:29 found in Chinese desserts?
04:30 See, for Chinese desserts, we are more into
04:32 more of the beans and beans,
04:35 the seeds and stuff like that.
04:37 Really natural, natural products.
04:39 Ah, okay, that's nice.
04:40 So do you have any modern twist
04:42 to any of the desserts here, then?
04:43 What we have, one is called MJ.
04:46 We don't have a proper name for it,
04:47 so we just put, temporarily put it MJ.
04:50 Basically, it stands for Michael Jackson.
04:52 Can I actually see it?
04:53 Yeah, sure, sure.
04:55 The fairy grass that we made ourselves,
04:57 then we just drain it off onto a bowl.
05:00 Then we put some magic sugar.
05:02 (laughs)
05:03 Magic sugar.
05:05 Put the black glutinous rice.
05:07 Oh, you call it pulut hitam?
05:08 Yeah, pulut hitam.
05:09 That's cooked with gula melaka.
05:11 And then a bit of coconut cream.
05:14 And then a dollop of vanilla ice cream.
05:16 I've had experience with ice cream before.
05:18 If you watch the show.
05:19 Ha!
05:21 Voila!
05:22 MJ!
05:23 Yeah.
05:23 I got all the ingredients in one spoon now, ready?
05:27 How's the texture in the mouth?
05:32 What?
05:33 (laughs)
05:34 It's like an explosion of happiness and joy.
05:37 All right, so this is an evolution of black glutinous rice.
05:40 In a way, it is.
05:42 Black glutinous rice itself,
05:43 I think is of Malay heritage.
05:45 Fairy grass jelly is basically a Chinese heritage.
05:47 Ice cream is a Western heritage thing.
05:50 It just happens so that all this traditional dessert
05:52 falls nicely in place together.
05:54 All right, so this is like a fusion
05:56 of different cultures then.
05:58 Yeah.
05:58 A whole melting pot.
06:00 I think I'm happy.
06:01 This episode, all I do is eat, right?
06:03 Nothing else I have to do, right?
06:05 Right?
06:06 I think it's time for you to work now.
06:08 I knew I was too happy here.
06:09 Since you guessed the activity correctly,
06:11 you get another additional 30 seconds.
06:13 So one minute.
06:14 So all in all, you get one full minute
06:16 to make up your own melting pot of dessert.
06:19 All right.
06:19 Three, two, one, go.
06:22 (laughs)
06:23 Okay, the thing is, I know what I like,
06:25 but I don't know how things taste combined together.
06:28 So...
06:29 Okay, pulut itam is the base.
06:32 Coconut.
06:33 Munah, you're left with 30 seconds.
06:35 Hey, why so fast?
06:36 Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait.
06:37 And then mango.
06:39 (timer beeps)
06:41 10 more seconds to go.
06:42 Okay, three, two, one, time's up.
06:51 (buzzer)
06:52 Okay.
06:53 Well, in terms of presentation, I guess it's not too bad.
06:57 Yeah, I like the color.
06:59 The color combination, you know,
07:01 and you've got a dark background behind it.
07:03 Next, I guess we have to taste it
07:06 and see if everything goes together.
07:08 You can be more enthusiastic about it.
07:10 (laughs)
07:12 You know, you have got a creaminess of the pulut itam
07:18 and also the fragrance of the coconut milk.
07:21 All of a sudden, the mango jumps in and gives it a burst.
07:25 Actually, I would give it a seven or eight.
07:27 Yeah.
07:28 Okay, where do you think I could have improved?
07:30 Maybe the gula melaka.
07:32 Because the sago has no taste to it.
07:34 It is absorbing the coconut milk.
07:37 So a bit of gula just to bring up a little bit of taste
07:39 from the sago side.
07:40 So you all do that before you put on the menu, okay?
07:42 Okay.
07:43 Improve the taste.
07:45 Yay, thank you.
07:48 Okay, let's have some dessert while we chat.
07:50 Yes.
07:51 Have you observed an upward trend
07:54 in the popularity of Chinese desserts?
07:56 The Chinese dessert is always here to stay
07:58 because it tastes good as it is already.
08:01 It's not only a dessert dessert,
08:03 but it's actually there's a lot of health benefits behind.
08:06 For example, walnuts, they say it'll nourish your brain.
08:09 Black sesame for black hair.
08:11 Yeah, it's a culture.
08:12 It's like a Tangsuyuk culture.
08:14 You know, after meals, you want something sweet.
08:17 You want something to complete you.
08:19 So why do you feel that it is important
08:21 to preserve the tradition of Cantonese snacks and desserts?
08:26 If you look around the market, the dessert stores, it's few.
08:29 To make a red bean paste, you need a lot more time, effort,
08:33 and more ingredients to it.
08:34 We're just trying to make sure that
08:36 the tastes are still like what it used to be.
08:38 My customers say, "Wow, this is like what my grandma used to cook."
08:42 Hopefully, we can impart that in our products.
08:45 It's nice.
08:46 Thanks for sharing the space with me
08:48 and sharing the skills, a little bit of it,
08:50 and the dessert, most of all.
08:52 Please enjoy.
08:54 I was so happy today because I really do love Chinese dessert.
08:59 And during the challenge, I was actually inspired by MJ
09:02 because MJ was a whole melting pot, right, of different flavors.
09:07 But it worked, and I love it.
09:09 And you know what? Dessert is dessert.
09:10 So it doesn't matter if you have a certain nostalgia for it.
09:13 That's great, but I think people of different races like myself
09:16 should also try different Chinese desserts
09:19 because it really is a melting pot, and it tastes so good.
09:22 So try mine.
09:23 See you in the next episode of Asia One Tries!
09:25 Mwah.
09:26 Come try my dessert.
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